ROHIT ALOK Eighteen students from a Thane-based hospitality institute, who were stranded in Malaysia after being sacked by their respective employers in June, finally arrived in Mumbai on Wednesday night. All of them are students of SES College of Hotel and Tourism Management, and had left for Malaysia last August. “The students were sacked immediately after the agency through which they were recruited was blacklisted by the Malaysian government,” said Sachin Koli of SES College. While three of the girls were employed with Aloft Hotel in Kuala Lumpar, the remaining were recruited at Four Point by Sheraton, another hotel in Pening, Malaysia. “We are happy to back home. We were stuck in multiple issues in Malaysia,” said Bharti Dholwade, one of the students. On August 17, 2013, the students flew to Malaysia from Chennai. They were placed at various hotels in Malaysia through a Singapore-based recruitment agency, UCP, which approached their college. According to families of some students, UCP informed their children in Kuala Lumpur last year that another recruiting agency, ASS, would manage their contracts and their accommodation thereon. The agency reportedly had the passports of all the students. The agency was blacklisted by the Malaysian government in June. It went underground with the students’ passports. The passports were, however, returned to the students later. A parent of one of the students said, “We are extremely relieved that our children are back. We will file a police complaint against all the persons involved.”
